


7x03: You Can't Just Watch, You Have To See

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dreamsharing, Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mindspaces, Post-Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Revenge, Temporal Anomaly, The 100 (TV) Season 7 Speculation, The Anomaly - Freeform, shared memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-22 13:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: Having gained access to Sanctum, Hope's true colours emerge as she takes her revenge. Murphy turns to Raven for help in solving his troubling dreams.16 weeks. 16 episodes. An entire fan-created speculative version of season 7. Each episode will have four chapters, posted once per day from Tuesday to Friday.
Relationships: Abby Griffin & Eric Jackson, Bellamy Blake & Gabriel Santiago | Xavier, Bellamy Blake & Hope Diyoza, Eric Jackson & Raven Reyes, Eric Jackson/Nathan Miller, Hope Diyoza & John Murphy, John Murphy & Raven Reyes, Octavia Blake & Eric Jackson, Octavia Blake & Niylah, Octavia Blake & Raven Reyes
Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595290
Comments: 29
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to episode 3! If you're new here, you'll want to read [episode 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22162840) and [episode 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22257892) first.
> 
> Trigedasleng translations are provided inline, so as to not give away spoilers, with the exception of the word "ani", which means "aunt" and is what Hope calls Octavia, so it appears regularly.
> 
> The title of this episode is from a line from the show _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ , episode 7x15 "Get It Done".

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA'S LAB - NIGHT_ **

While Octavia and Ash reached out to Murphy, Niylah settled into a quiet corner of the lab resting against the wall. Legs crossed, arms comfortable. She felt the tech in her veins, shifting, _moving,_ trying to find its goal, some sort of complicated science that Niylah hadn’t really understood, but she knew that there were different particles in one’s blood and that the tech was searching out a specific kind, and when it did, it would start to link her mind to those of others.

Link her mind to Octavia’s. Niylah was equal parts excited and terrified by what she might find there. She didn’t know how this was all possible, but she trusted Octavia, she had to trust this.

She closed her eyes and took long and slow breaths, clearing her mind, willing her mind to start to connect. Willing it to build the constructs within her mind that would enable her to share with others, to reach others, to feel others.

She took in a long breath, and felt the wind in her hair again.

**_NIYLAH’S MINDSPACE - TRIKRU FOREST - NIGHT_ **

Niylah opened her eyes, and found herself in the forest. An intimately familiar forest, the forest of her childhood, surrounding her family’s trading post on the northern edges of Trikru territory.

It was night time, the stars were out, and they were the only thing that could guide her through the trees to the trading post itself. She wasn’t sure what she would find there, she knew this was a construct in her mind of some sort, but felt drawn there nonetheless. Like she had some sort of unfinished business.

Everything looked quiet as she approached the trading post, no people around outside, though she did take note of Skaikru’s Rover, which she’d seen outside only twice - once when Skaikru had come looking for Clarke and saved her from the bounty hunter, leaving it there as they continued to track Clarke overland on foot; and the second time when they’d barged in with a possessed Raven and in need of her Skaikru wristband to somehow save her. The day she learned that Bellamy, the man that Clarke appeared to respect and revere above all others, had been responsible for the massacre that had killed her father.

She felt that same anger welling up in her now, despite it being years ago, for she also knew that Bellamy was Octavia’s brother. Octavia had been the center of her world for the past six years, and the old hurts of Bellamy’s participation in the massacre were overrun by the new hurts that he’d committed against his sister, _her friend,_ and she didn’t know if she could forgive Bellamy for that, even if Octavia herself had.

Niylah realized she had her swordbelt on, it had been some time, but here she was, back as she was back then. She drew her sword and approached the trading post carefully.

Walking inside, the front room was empty - not only of people, but of things as well. A trading post with nothing to trade. Nothing to see. Nothing to share.

Curious.

Niylah kept walking, heading into the back room, to her bedroom, a place where so much had happened - she’d spent a night with Clarke, this was where Raven had been tied up while possessed… Skaikru had certainly made a mess of things that night. She’d only been able to tidy up weeks later when she’d returned after fleeing for her life just minutes after Skaikru had left, not knowing what would happen with ALIE.

Then she’d left, gone to Arkadia for what was supposed to be a simple delivery of dried meat, and never returned. Since then, her life had been wrapped up with Octavia - helping save her life, when the Trishanakru boy had brought her in with a stab wound in her side, trying to help save the Ark, helping Octavia heal. Going with Skaikru to the bunker, almost being thrown out into the radiation until Octavia stepped in and saved her life.

She’d never returned home. Until now.

And she’d never have expected to see what she saw there.

Her bed was in the middle of the room, instead of against one wall. And two thrones sat on either side of it. One, made of wood and swords, the other of steel and bone.

On each sat a Commander.

On the throne of wood and swords, sat her _Wanheda_ \- Clarke, her Commander of Death.

On the throne of steel and bone, sat her _Sonraunheda_ \- Octavia, her Commander of Life.

Both women were resplendent in Grounder finery, makeup befitting their stations. Both were looking at her.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Niylah asked. “What brings you here?”

“Why are we here, when everything else in your life is gone?” Clarke asked. “This place is empty.”

“Because you brought death into my home, _Wanheda.”_ Niylah answered. “Where you came, death followed.”

“Did it?” Clarke asked. “Or perhaps it is just you. Perhaps death follows you.”

“I lived for six years without you in my life, without death following me.”

“Now, that’s not true, is it?” Clarke asked, looking over to Octavia. “She brings death too. Hundreds died in that bunker. Hundreds more died when you returned to the ground.”

“More would have died had she not fought for us.”

“Two thirds of your people died.”

“Not because she wished it. She wanted to save them. And she never murdered entire civilizations.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

“She will never be you.” Niylah insisted. “She saved my life. She is not what you think she is.”

“Perhaps you’re just drawn to darkness.” Clarke said. “There’s a darkness within you that screams for it. You’re not brave enough to confront your own dark desires, and so you find yourself drawn to those whose souls are full of darkness.”

“I don’t choose the darkness. I choose the light. I choose to help them find their way back to the light.”

“Did you help me?” Clarke asked, cocking her head as she inspected Niylah. “Or did you just give me what I needed? Congratulations for what I’d done, congratulations for a _genocide,_ followed by a warm bed and a warm body for the night? Even if that isn’t what _light_ would want?”

“You needed to remember that you were still just a person. I tried to give you that.”

“But did you? Did you help me remember my humanity? Or did you encourage that death, that violence? Didn’t you love _Wanheda?”_

“Perhaps I did. Perhaps I haven’t been as successful as helping people find their humanity as I thought I was.”

“Perhaps you weren’t.” Clarke said.

“But what about me?” Niylah asked. “Who helped me? I’ve been giving my devotion and my loyalty for so long, I don’t know myself anymore.”

“And how does that make you feel?” Octavia spoke for the first time.

“I don’t know. No one has ever asked me that before.”

“I’m asking now.” Octavia got up from her throne, coming down the steps to stand before Niylah, her expression soft under the harsh paint on her face. “I’m asking you to tell me how you feel. Tell me your thoughts, your pain. Your life has been defined by mine for so long. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Niylah said. “Your pain was greater than mine.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Octavia said. “My pain wasn’t your responsibility, even though I made it so. I shouldn’t have.”

_“Okteivia…”_

“No. Don’t say it.” Octavia pressed two fingers to Niylah’s lips. “I need you to know that you can talk to me. To any of us. Your thoughts and your pain are _ours_ now. They are not only yours to bear. I swear by my life, I will help you. I will be there for you as you’ve been there for me.”

Octavia sank to her knees in front of Niylah, holding one of Niylah’s hands between both of hers. “I swear to you, Niylah kom Wonkru, to listen to your hurts, to know your pain, to help you heal as you’ve helped me. I promise to treat your needs as my own.”

 _“Okteivia…_ I…”

“You’re one of us now.” Octavia said, getting back to her feet. “And I will help you until the end of my days.”

“You’re immortal.”

“Then that’s how long I swear to do right by you.”

“Are you here, _Okteivia?_ Or are you a construct of my mind?”

“I’m here. She’s a construct.” Octavia motioned to Clarke. “I am sorry, that I was so focused on the big picture, so focused on saving my people, so focused on my own pain and need for absolution that I never looked at what that did to the people around me. What pain our world caused them, what pain _I_ caused them. I am stopping that now.”

“I believe you are.” Niylah said. “You’re growing. We all are. As you’ve said - we’re becoming more. I can’t wait to see what that all looks like.”

“You will. Soon. This is only the beginning.”

Octavia kissed her cheek, and the vision faded out, returning Niylah back to the lab where she was sitting.

_**SANCTUM - TAVERN - MORNING** _

Raven came down to the tavern for breakfast to find Murphy already sitting at the bar, knocking back shots of something that definitely wasn’t a breakfast beverage.

“Hey.” Raven said, sitting down next to him. “I don’t think that’s what they recommend for breakfast around here.”

Murphy looked at her and knocked back another. “You’re assuming I’ve been able to sleep.”

“What’s going on, Murphy?”

“This immortality thing was a mistake, okay? Every time I’ve tried to sleep since getting the drive, I keep having these dreams. Only they’re not dreams.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re memories. But they’re not _my_ memories.”

“Something that was left on the drive?”

“No. These aren’t the memories of some guy that lived a luxurious life as a god here in Sanctum, with a family and a boyfriend and everything he could ever ask for. These are dark painful memories from Earth. Well, Earth… and the Ark.”

Raven frowned. “Is your drive somehow communicating with the one that is in Clarke’s head?”

Murphy shook his head. “It’s not Clarke. That might some karmically horrific type of sense, but this doesn’t make sense at all.”

“Then whose memories are they?” When Murphy didn’t answer, she continued. “If it is something to do with the drive, I might be able to help you. We can go to Jackson, we can take it out, I can analyze it. Then that will tell you whether it is the drive or whether it is just dreams.”

“They’re not just dreams, okay?” Murphy’s voice was loud enough to attract the attention of some of the other people sitting nearby. He turned his gaze back to Raven and lowered his voice. “I didn’t just _see_ things. I _felt_ everything that she felt. The pain, the helplessness, the despair. I thought I knew what darkness felt like, what it felt like to have no hope, and to feel yourself sinking deeper and deeper every day… how she went through all of that and still came back to fight with us, to fight for all of the people here, I don’t know. She’s stronger than I am, that’s for sure.”

“You’re talking about Octavia.” Raven said slowly.

“Yeah. Don’t ask me how, but they were definitely her memories.”

“When did it start?”

“After the Anomaly expansion. Look, just don’t tell Emori, okay? I don’t want her to worry.”

“But you should be worried. Both of you should. She said something strange too - not a dream, but like… like someone was controlling her body for a moment, saying something that didn’t fit the moment. She didn’t know what was going on either. Whatever is happening to you might be happening to her too.”

“But she hasn’t been having nightmares.”

“Raven!” Bellamy’s voice came from behind them.

They turned to see Bellamy standing at the entrance to the tavern.

“If they’re back, maybe we can get some answers.” Raven said, standing up. “Coming?”

“No, you should go. He needs you for something. Duty calls, right? I’m not going anywhere.”

“We’re not done talking about this.” Raven said, resting a hand on Murphy’s for a moment, before heading over to Bellamy.

“You’re okay.” Raven said, giving him a hug and a smile. But as she looked beyond him to see only Gabriel and an unfamiliar woman, her smile fell.

“Echo? Octavia?”

“They’ve gone through the Anomaly.” Bellamy said, rubbing his forehead, feeling Octavia’s blood still dry there, coming off in flakes. “It’s a long story and we’ll get to it, but rumour has it that they’ll be fine. We have no choice but to trust that right now. What’s happened here?”

“The Anomaly expanded and engulfed this place.” Indra said, coming up next to them. “It took four of our people. Gaia, Madi, Miller and Niylah. I’m hoping you can explain why.”

“Good choices.” Hope whispered. “Good.”

“Who is she?” Indra asked suspiciously.

“This is Hope Diyoza.” Bellamy said.

“What?” Raven exclaimed. _“Hope_ Diyoza. Charmaine Diyoza’s daughter?”

“Yes.” Hope said.

“Who was a fetus less than a week ago.”

“Time moves differently on the other side.” Hope said, clearly tired of having to explain it. “By your reckoning, yes, I was a fetus a week ago, but get over it, I’m not anymore. Are you Raven?”

“Yes.” Raven said. “How do you know who I am?”

“My mother and _ani_ told me stories about you. About all of you.” She looked Indra up and down. “And you must be Indra.”

“I am.”

Hope stepped into her personal space, a challenge evident in her expression. _“Em nou na gon riskiwe, seda.” (She will not fade into the dark, teacher.)_

_“Hod yu rein daun, gada. Hakom yu chich ai op?” (Mind your place, girl. Why do you talk to me?)_

_“Yu nou drag em klin nowe. Em kep yu sonraun klin.” (You will not disrespect her. She saved your life.)_

“Hope, that’s enough.” Bellamy said, trying to pull her back by the arm, but she shook him off in a gesture so reminiscent of Octavia that he knew now, if he hadn’t been convinced before, that they’d known each other for a long long time.

It now occurred to him that if Octavia had indeed lived in that place, Omphalos, for twenty years… that Hope had known her longer than he had. It was a sobering thought.

“She has to answer for what she’s done, Bellamy.” Hope said. “So do you. So do a great many others. I know _ani_ will never hold you to account. She’s _good._ She’s got a big heart and there’s too much room for forgiveness in it.” Hope cocked her head as she continued to stare into Indra’s eyes. “But I’m not like her. Do you know what my earliest childhood memories are? Do you? Being woken up by _ani’s_ screams and mother having to help her through her nightmares. Nightmares of all of you and what you did to her and made her do and didn’t share any of the responsibility for.” Hope’s gaze slipped from Indra as she retreated into memories. “Sometimes she’d just scream and scream and scream and nothing mother did could stop it. Sometimes I’d open her door and _ani_ would be sitting there covered in her own blood as mother tried to pry a knife from her hands and tell me to go back to bed. I remember it. I remember all of it.”

Hope stepped back from Indra, but looked back at her with fury in her eyes. “For _ani’s_ sake, you get to live. For the sake of the empathy and the peace that _ani_ wants to build in this world, you get to live. But you have to _earn_ that peace. And I’m not going to make it easy for you.”

Indra’s eyes slid from Hope to Bellamy. “I assume that who she refers to as _ani_ is your sister.”

“Yeah.” Bellamy said, running his hand through his hair. “That’s another long story, but the short version is that several days ago Octavia and Charmaine Diyoza both went into the Anomaly. Octavia came back in what appeared to be a few seconds, but Diyoza is still in there. And time on the other side of it passed a lot faster. Octavia was in there for twenty years, with Hope and Diyoza, and she went back when the Anomaly expanded. Hope showed up at that point. Echo went in after Octavia, she apparently has information that could help her. The people who disappeared from here will apparently be able to help Octavia in some way.”

“Tell me everything.” Indra said.

“You can do that.” Hope said to Bellamy, while motioning for Gabriel to join her. “We need Raven and Jackson.”

“What do you need me for?” Raven asked.

 _“Ani_ told me you were the tech genius. You could solve any technological mystery or puzzle you put your mind to.”

“That would be me.”

“Good.” Hope held up her knife. “I need you and Jackson to analyze _ani’s_ blood and reverse engineer what you find there so that we can explain how it works to everyone.”

Raven looked at Bellamy. “Should I ask exactly how she came by Octavia’s blood?”

“Probably not. I don’t know where Octavia and Echo are. But if we want to help them, do what Hope wants for now.”

“This isn’t to help them.” Hope said. “This is to help _you._ They’ve got their own work to do. They have to save my mother and stop Father William. You have your own mission here, and you’ll need this to help you. You’ll understand once you see.”

Bellamy held up his hands in surrender. “The faster we deal with whatever her obsession is with Octavia’s blood, the faster we’ll have answers. Just do it.”

“Okay.” Raven said. “Come with me. I think Jackson is in the medical lab already. Indra, after you get the full story from Bellamy…”

“I’ll take him to her.”

Raven nodded. “Follow me. Hey!” She shouted across the room. “Murphy! You want answers? Come with us.”

Reluctantly, Murphy slipped off the barstool and made his way after Raven.

_**SANCTUM - LAB - MORNING** _

Raven, Murphy, Hope and Gabriel passed through the skeleton room - someone really needed to get rid of those - and into the lab beyond it, where Jackson sat next to some monitors, looking at brain scans.

“Are those Clarke’s?” Gabriel asked.

Jackson jumped a bit, startled, and turned around. “How did you know?”

“I removed the mind drive from her head. I saw her and Josephine fighting for control. I’ve done enough mind drives and seen enough brain scans to know that Clarke would be suffering from brain damage right now.”

“You’re Gabriel.”

“That I am.”

Jackson stood up to shake his hand. “Dr Eric Jackson. I’ve induced Clarke into a coma so that she can rest and heal, because she was starting to seize and bleed from her nose again due to stress, but if you have other recommendations, I’ll take them.”

“That would be my recommendation too. We have a different mystery for you to solve right now.”

“Jackson, meet Hope Diyoza.” Raven said.

Jackson looked at Hope curiously, and was even more shocked when she stepped forwards and gave him a hug, which he returned very cautiously as he watched Gabriel’s momentarily panicked expression.

Hope stepped back, looking at Gabriel’s expression and chuckled. “What, did you think I was going to stab him too?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

“Stab?” Jackson asked, stepping back even further from Hope. “Who did she stab?”

“I stabbed Octavia. But you don’t need to worry. She’s fine. Nate is with her. They’ll both be just fine and you’ll understand everything soon. They need you to help your people here.” Hope held up her knife again. “I have Octavia’s blood here. You and Raven need to analyze it. When you understand, then you’ll be able to see Nate. And Octavia. Maybe even today, if you work fast.”

Jackson crossed his arms. “Why would I help you if you just told me you stabbed Octavia?”

“I was short on time, okay? But she understood. And she heals. Quickly. I know you trust her. I know you care about her. So do I. She helped raised me and I love her like I love my mother. So please, analyze her blood and you’ll see that everything I’m telling you is true.”

Jackson looked at Raven for help, not sure what to do in this extremely perplexing situation.

“I say we do it.” Raven said. “Bellamy said to do it, and she just roasted Indra real good out there. Some parts don’t add up, but Hope does care about Octavia, that I am sure about.”

“Why both of us?”

“Him for the medical, you for the technological.” Hope said, exasperated. “Shouldn’t that be obvious?”

“There’s tech in her blood?” Jackson asked.

“Yes. I don’t know the science of how to explain it. But Octavia has been working on it for years and what it does is beautiful.”

“Octavia’s been working on tech.” Raven said incredulously. “That… doesn’t sound like her.”

“Not for the Octavia of your world. But the Octavia of my world is an accomplished scientist who could give you a run for your money.”

“But I saw her when we got back from the ship.” Jackson said. “She doesn’t look older.”

“No. She doesn’t. And she won’t. Ever. Just please analyze her blood, both of you, and then we’ll all be on the same page, okay?” Hope handed her knife to Jackson, tapping the side of it as she did. “There’s a compartment here where I collected her blood.”

Jackson nodded, and Hope went over to the other side of the room, sitting down on the floor, crossing her legs and crossing her arms, waiting.

Murphy watched as Raven, Jackson and Gabriel got to work, clearly a fourth wheel as far as research went, but Raven had insisted he come along. What for?

He looked over at Hope, knowing that she knew Octavia. How she was apparently close to Octavia, despite also stabbing her. Was she why Raven asked him to come? Could Hope know the answers to his questions?

Taking a chance, he went over to where Hope was sitting. She looked up at him briefly, decided that he was of no interest and looked away again. Almost immediately the expression on her face changed, and she looked back at him.

“You’re Murphy, right?”

“I am.”

“Sit down. She needs to talk to you.”

Murphy smirked. “See, most people would think that sounds nuts, you taking directions from someone who isn’t there, but I know that game. I’ve seen it enough. I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.”

“I’m not selling anything. She is here, Murphy. She knows you must have questions. But she didn’t have any other way to reach you.” Hope got back to her feet. “She’s sorry for how painful the dreams have been, but if it is any consolation, she’s been experiencing your painful memories too.”

Murphy stepped back from Hope. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It builds empathy. Connection.” Hope gestured over to where Raven, Jackson and Gabriel were working. “They’ll explain the science of it. When they do, you’ll see. Octavia wants to help you. That’s why she came to you.”

“I’m listening.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Brief appearance of self-harm in this chapter.

**_SANCTUM - LAB - MORNING_ **

“So you’re telling me that Octavia’s been sending me her worst memories as a way to try to get me into my mindspace so that I can take some sort of mental drug?” Murphy asked after hearing Hope’s story.

“That’s the short version, yeah.”

“And she’s been seeing my worst memories in return… why, exactly?”

“Like I said. Empathy. That’s how this tech that we have works. There are thousands of us across the universe. We feel each other’s joy, pain, all of it. Nothing is one-sided. By sharing ourselves, we understand each other. Through understanding comes peace.”

“But I don’t have whatever it is you do.”

“You don’t, no. But the mind drive provides for an in to do some basic communication. For Octavia to give you what you need to be safe. She’s already been to Clarke, but because she doesn’t know you or Emori as well, it’s been harder.” Hope paused for a moment, concentrating on what it was Octavia was telling her. “Emori’s mind has been even harder than yours, not only because she doesn’t know her, but because her mind has more security in it than yours does. Probably a reaction to her experience with the City of Light, she’s created more mental barriers. Not a bad idea, but it still won’t stand a chance against him.”

“Won’t stand a chance against who?”

“Sheidheda. Having a mind drive makes you vulnerable.”

“Sheidheda?” Raven asked, looking away from her work. “You know something about Sheidheda?”

“Just that he’s loose. And the only way to isolate him so that he can be destroyed is to protect all of the people who have mind drives.” Hope said. “Octavia’s got that covered. You just focus on what is in front of you right now.”

Raven nodded reluctantly, returning to her work. Gabriel, however, stepped away from his microscope to come over to Hope and Murphy.

“You were right.” Gabriel said to Hope. “Examining several samples of blood from my people, and comparing it to yours and those from Earth, shows that degradation that you told us about.”

“Degradation? What degradation?” Murphy asked.

“Nothing for you to worry about.” Hope said. “We’re leaving this planet soon anyway. But now, Gabriel, you understand the importance of why we need to go, right? You will make sure everyone on this planet knows.”

“I will.” Gabriel looked over to Raven and Jackson. “Let’s let them work in peace. I need to go talk to Russell about this.”

“Russell is no longer in charge here.” Murphy said.

“Maybe not, but you’ll have a much easier time convincing everyone here that they’ll have to abandon the only homes they’ve ever known to go to a new planet if he’s the one to tell them.”

“Fair enough.” Murphy responded. “Let’s go.”

**_SANCTUM - JOSEPHINE’S BEDROOM - MORNING_ **

After hearing his story, Indra took Bellamy through the palace, following the winding hallways until they came to Josephine’s room, two Wonkru guards stationed on either side of the door.

“They are loyal to me.” Indra said. “You can be sure that Clarke is safe.”

“Thank you, Indra.” Bellamy said. “Do you know how long she’ll be like this?”

“That is a question for Jackson. But he said it is the best place for her right now, to be able to heal her mind after what it went through.”

Bellamy nodded, trying to stay calm, trying to keep himself together, despite his entire world collapsing around him. Indra rested a hand on his shoulder briefly, and then left him alone as he went inside.

Clarke was still, stiller than he’d ever seen her before, monitoring machines and an IV surrounding her. He could see her chest moving up and down as she breathed, almost as if she was just sleeping, but Bellamy had never even seen her that calm even while asleep.

“Clarke.” He whispered, sitting down next to her. “I’m sorry. If I’d realized sooner, if I’d fought for you from the moment we found out - maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.”

Bellamy took her cold hand, holding it between both of his, trying to share his warmth. “My sister’s gone and I don’t know where she is. Echo too. The only way I was even able to hold it together to get back here was knowing you’d be here so that we could come up with a plan to save them. But you’re not here either, and… I don’t know what to do.

“I have to hope that Hope is telling the truth.” Bellamy said, tears beginning to stream down his face. “Because if I’ve lost all of you, if I don’t have… I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know who I am without you.”

Bellamy cried for a few minutes, trying to pull himself together, eventually able to do so by remembering what Clarke had told him a long time ago.

“You told me once that I inspire people. But the only way to survive was that if I used my head too. If what Hope said is true and that we can’t survive here, if we’re not supposed to be here, then I have to do what I can to save our people. Get them home, like Octavia wanted. But I’m not going to leave you. I won’t. You’re coming with us no matter what, even if I have to cart you across the galaxy with all of these machines.”

Bellamy stood up, kissing Clarke’s forehead and tucking her hand under the covers. “May we meet again. You rest, this time I’ll save our people.”

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

After a good night’s sleep and a morning working with Ash and Niylah on building connections, the group was sitting down to lunch. Miller and Gaia were still undecided on whether or not to take the empathy tech, even after Octavia told them that Hope had made it to Sanctum and that Raven and Jackson were working on understanding it.

“They’re not going to take it, you know.” Miller said, picking at his food, resentful expression still on his face. “Bad call picking the two people who had the most experience with the City of Light. They’re not just going to take tech into their bodies just like that. Not after what they went through with ALIE.”

“That’s why Hope has asked them to analyze it. To study it. So they understand it and know that it is nothing like the City of Light.” Octavia said. “Sending her in there with what I fully admit is some crazy story about brain connections and experiencing lives across many different worlds wouldn’t work. They have to see it, they have to understand it. That’s how they’ll know there’s nothing to be afraid of.

“Complete and total free will is the foundation on which I built this. You don’t have to listen to anyone. You don’t have to do what others ask you to do. You are always in control, and even if you have given control over to someone else for one reason or another, you can at any moment take that control back.”

“So as you share across worlds, how does this information get saved?” Gaia asked. “The Flame was a repository of minds. Do you have some sort of repository here?”

“No. This isn’t like the Flame. It is an evolution beyond that - not the storage of information for one person to use as they will, but to make information and knowledge available to everyone. This _links_ minds, it doesn’t store them.”

“This was an evolution itself of something that came before. You said you had an early prototype.” Ash said. “Something that was supposed to inspire empathy.”

“When I first started working with this idea, it wasn’t to link minds out of a desire to create empathy and peace through the understanding that would create.” Octavia said, a note of caution in her voice. “It was to share memories, mostly ugly and terrible ones, to make people realize how destructive what they did was. How they caused pain when they could have stopped it.”

“What happened with that?”

“I used it once and never again.” Octavia confessed. “I was angry. Angrier than I’ve ever been before in my life. I wanted people to suffer. But then after, I - I knew it wasn’t what I wanted. I’d been fighting through my pain for five years, and drowning it in again wasn’t the answer. So that’s when I locked it away, vowing never to touch it again, no matter how angry I felt.”

Octavia’s gaze turned to a drawer in one of the cabinets that lined the wall. She furrowed her brow as she noticed the lock on it was open.

“Did any of you open that drawer?” Octavia asked, standing up to take a closer look.

Everyone shook their heads. Octavia opened the drawer, fearing the worst and a glance confirmed it - it was empty.

“Does anyone else have access to this lab?” Niylah asked.

“Just…” Octavia’s expression turned thunderous. “Just Hope. Oh _no.”_

“I thought Hope was a friend.” Ash said. “She said she was a friend.”

“She is. She is like a daughter to me.” Octavia looked at Ash. “A daughter who knows the stories of my life, all of the dark corners of my past - though that wasn’t exactly by my choice, I’d have protected her from those if I’d been able to at the time - and who doesn’t have the emotional attachments to the people in those stories. A daughter who has always been angry at those people for what they did.”

“And who now has a tool to share memories with others.” Niylah said slowly, comprehension dawning.

“That she does.”

**_SANCTUM - TAVERN - AFTERNOON_ **

Hope and Murphy returned to the tavern, joining Indra and Bellamy at a table. After ordering some food for them, Gabriel headed off to speak to the group of his people that had come with them, and then to the palace to relieve Emori of guard duty and have his conversation with Russell.

Hope looked at the plate of food that Blythe Ann put down in front of her, and studied it carefully.

“Different from the food back home?” Murphy asked.

“Very much so.” Hope picked up one of the items on her plate and sniffed it, deeming it suitable for consumption and shoved it in her mouth. She chewed quickly and swallowed. “Okay, that’s good.”

“Glad we meet your approval.” Blythe Ann said. “Anything to drink?”

“Whatever you have. Thank you.”

Blythe Ann set down a glass of juice, and Hope took a drink of it along with a black pill that she took out of a case in her pocket, the drink meeting her approval as well.

“So tell us about Omphalos.” Indra said. “The Anomaly.”

“Omphalos isn’t the Anomaly.” Hope mumbled around a mouthful of food. “Omphalos is on the _other side_ of the Anomaly. The Anomaly takes you to Omphalos. Which is very far away from here. I don’t even think we could take a ship there.”

“But you can to other places that Omphalos is connected to.” Bellamy said.

Hope nodded. “Obviously. Terra - sorry, Earth - and Gaia - here - are both connected to Omphalos. And you took a ship between them. But we’re not supposed to be here. This planet isn’t ready for human life yet. Which is why we need to leave this place as soon as Octavia comes back with my mother.”

“Another long trip back across the galaxy.” Murphy said. “They should really develop a faster method.”

“We have a faster method in Omphalos.” Hope said. “Just like the Anomaly here, only without the Anomaly part. Octavia will need to save my mother and put a stop to Father William and then the faster road will be open to all of us if we go there. But as long as Father William rules in Omphalos, that road is closed to us.”

“Who is Father William?” Bellamy asked. “You know him, but you don’t know him the same way my sister and your mother do.”

“I don’t. Mother was reluctant to even get involved with Octavia’s plans. She avoids them as much as possible. And for her sake, Octavia didn’t want me involved either. But when I became an adult, that was no longer their choice. I was going to make my own way, and that involved working with Octavia, even when she still tried to protect me from the more dangerous parts of it, such as Father William’s past. But I do know some things about him.”

“What do you know?”

“I know that Father William has been a powerful man for a very long time. And that the reason he is so powerful and exerts such control is because he’s afraid. He wants to stop Octavia because she has the key to humanity’s peaceful survival. The people wouldn’t need him anymore. He’s killed and imprisoned many in his quest for control. But they were merely mortal. It is harder for him to get to Octavia.”

“Which is why he’s drawing her in with your mother.” Indra said.

“Exactly.” Hope sighed. “I hope that with the reinforcements that she brought with her, and the allies that we have in Omphalos, that she will be able to bring him down. Not kill him, let’s be clear - but to make him see.”

“How exactly will this making him _see_ work?” Bellamy asked.

Hope’s smile turned poisonous. “I’m so glad you asked.”

She yanked a small box out of her pocket, pressed some buttons on it quickly, watching as a large needle came out of one side of it.

They were all too focused on the box that they could make no moves to stop her when she moved fast and jammed the needle into the back of Bellamy’s neck.

Murphy and Indra leapt back from the table as Hope brandished the box in front of herself, keeping them at bay, all watching as Bellamy clawed at the back of his neck, falling out of his chair.

“Here it comes.” Hope said, smile growing wider.

Bellamy appeared to lose consciousness bit by bit, muscles slumping him to the ground. But just a few seconds after it seemed like he was out cold he shot back up to a sitting position, eyes wide, but unseeing of what was in front of him.

He was seeing something entirely different.

_Screams surrounded him, screaming was all he heard as he ran out of a room and to the door of another one. He was small again, somehow, impossibly small - a child? How was he a child again? But he knew the source of the screams. He recognized the voice. He’d heard them before._

_Octavia._

_How could he be hearing his sister if he was a young child? She wasn’t born then. But the doors and rooms around him also bore no resemblance to the Ark. He wasn’t on the Ark anymore, but he was a child and his sister was screaming. He had to get to her._

_He opened the door to the room that was the source of the screams._

_Pain, anguish, fear, terror. All of these emotions rained down on him as he saw the sight before him. Octavia was sitting on a bed, covered in blood, her own blood, he could see slashes on her arms as they bled but sealed up within moments, he saw Diyoza trying to wrestle a knife out of her hands, without success._

_Octavia’s screams continued, her eyes blank and unseeing as she was deep in a nightmare, deep in a memory that he didn’t think he knew, but the child he was had whispers that whispered within his mind, horrible stories that the child had heard in previous instances of walking into a room like this._

_It wasn’t the first time these screams had woken the child, but it was the first time there was blood._

_“Hope!” Came Diyoza’s voice as she finally yanked the knife out of Octavia’s hands. “Go back to bed. Now.”_

_The door slammed. The horrible vision was gone._

Bellamy came back to himself with a gasp, his whole body shaking as he tried to regain a grip on reality. Was this reality? What was it that he’d seen? How had he seen it? He rubbed the back of his neck, finding a sore spot, feeling a small lump the size of a bead under his fingers that seemed to be embedded in his spine.

“It isn’t going anywhere.” Hope said, voice dripping with poison. “It’ll remind you again and again when you least expect it.”

“What the hell was that?”

“My memories of the first time I woke up to see _ani’s_ nightmares get the best of her. The _first_ time I saw her trying to cut out a part of herself. And it definitely wasn’t the last.”

Indra made a move to approach Hope, to disarm her, but Hope slipped her grip and backed up a few paces, holding the box out in front of her.

“Be careful, _seda.”_ Hope spat at her. “It isn’t just my memories in this box. Which one of _ani’s_ would you like to experience? The day you stood by and watched her break? The day you betrayed her? The day you would have watched her die?”

“My sister put her memories in that box?” Bellamy asked, trying to slowly stand up so that he could move back into his seat, but muscles were not yet ready to cooperate and he dropped back to the ground.

“A very long time ago. This was one of her first prototypes, made in the days after she learned the truth about Omphalos. She was so angry that it cracked open all of the memories and pain that she thought she’d made peace with. And she channeled her anger into this. She only used it once, and then locked it away, vowing never to touch it again.” Hope was quiet for a moment, pulling the device back to hold close to herself, tapping it with the fingers of her other hand. “She didn’t want other people to suffer as she had. She was adamant about building a world where no one would have to suffer as her people did, for those long years that they lived under the floor, believing themselves to be all that remained of humanity in the universe. And I respect that.”

“Then you’d know that she wouldn’t want you to use it as you just have.” Indra said slowly, as she and Murphy began to circle Hope. “She would want you to destroy it and never think of using it again.”

“She would.” Hope admitted. “But I can’t do that. We will all do what we have to for the sake of the people we love. That’s human nature. And before you are worthy of knowing her peace you will feel my wrath.”

Hope pressed a button on the device again and moved fast, leaping and twisting her way into Indra’s personal space, holding her in a chokehold long enough to jab the needle into the back of her neck as well, dropping her to the ground when her mission was done.

The commotion had stirred up a terrified sort of interest from the others in the tavern, who had all plastered themselves along the walls, fearful of what she might do to them. Only Murphy stood in the middle of the floor, staring her down.

“I have no quarrel with you.” Hope said to him, holding her hands up in a sort of surrender, though she clearly had no intention of backing down. “You already know. You’ve already seen. And you didn’t know her then. I have no fight with you. Or any of you.” Hope called out to the other people in the tavern. “Only those who did _ani_ harm. Only those who made her suffer.”

Hope pocketed the device and stepped closer to Murphy, holding her hands out so as to indicate her desire not to attack him. “Take me to _her.”_

“To who?” Murphy asked nervously, eyeing the pocket with the device.

“The traitorous doctor. _Abby.”_

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s dead.”

“Dead.” Hope said. “When?”

“A few days ago. The Primes wiped her mind and replaced her with one of them. Then Clarke floated the bodysnatcher.”

Hope nodded, just once but firmly. “I accept that. And her lover?”

“Kane? He’s dead too. Floated himself after Abby put him in a new body.”

“Why am I not surprised that she’d do that?” Hope scoffed. “At least he did one good thing in his life. Ending it.”

“Hope, stop this.” Bellamy said as he finally had the muscle control to pull himself back into his chair, eyes on Indra as she convulsed on the ground next to Hope. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” Hope said firmly. “You seem to have forgotten that you’ve all done things. Terrible things. Monstrous things. All to survive and to save your people. _Ani_ is no different. But instead of giving her the compassion you’ve all given each other, you made her believe she was a monster. That what she did defined her, even when your deeds didn’t define you.” Hope cocked her head as she looked Bellamy right in the eyes. “Wasn’t it you that said ‘who we are and who we need to be to survive are two very different things’? Why are you allowed to say that, to _be_ that, but _ani_ isn’t? She needed your compassion, but all you gave her is pain. A pain that I feel deep in my soul because it was never put right, and I love her too much to be able to let that go. So now I am making it right. Once you understand her pain, you’ll be allowed to feel her grace. But not a second before.”

Hope stalked out of the tavern, not looking back, righteous fury streaming off of her in such waves that no one was brave enough to follow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Mentions of self-harm in this chapter.

**_SANCTUM - LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

Hope stormed back into the lab, slamming both sets of doors behind her with a loud crash. Raven and Jackson both looked up from the microscope at the commotion, Hope’s anger evident to anyone within a five mile radius.

“That was short.” Jackson said. “We were going to come get you when we found something, I promise.”

“I’m sure you would, but right now I don’t feel like being around people I want to punch in the face. And it was going to come to that, since they don’t seem to want to _see._ So I’m just going to stay here. I’ll be out of your way, I promise.”

Hope retreated to a corner by the door and took a seat, fiddling with the device she’d used on Bellamy and Indra. Jackson and Raven exchanged a look, and Raven motioned with her head towards Hope. Jackson nodded, and left Raven at the microscope to go to talk to Hope.

Jackson crouched down in front of Hope, looking at the device in her hands.

“What’s that?” He asked softly.

“Justice.”

“What kind of justice?”

“It makes people experience the memories of others. Specific saved memories.”

“Did you make some people experience someone else’s memories?”

Hope nodded, clutching the device to her chest. “Yes. They need to _know._ They need to _understand._ They need to _see._ They haven’t wanted to on their own.” She looked up at Jackson with wide sad eyes. “But you do. You understand. _Ani_ always said you were there for her.”

_“Ani?”_

“You speak Trig?”

“Some. Not very well.”

_“Ani_ means Aunt. Octavia.”

“You made someone experience Octavia’s memories?”

“Indra. And Bellamy got to see some of my memories. From when I was very young, and _ani_ \- she - she was in a bad place. I woke up one night to her screaming, and went into her room, and - and she was -”

“Hey.” Jackson said, resting a gentle hand on her knee. “It’s okay. I… I think I know what you’re referring to. And I’ve been there for her in those moments too. I know how terrified you must have felt. Especially as a child.”

“I just… I don’t know how they can just be all right with everything they did. How they don’t _know_ what it did to her. I - _ani_ didn’t really talk about those days, not consciously, but my most vivid memories of my childhood, my earliest memories, are all of her. In pain and suffering because of her past. How so many people didn’t care to help her or understand her.” Hope sniffed and wiped away a tear. “But you did. You were there for her. She only had good things to say about you.”

“She had a really hard job. I did what I could to make it easier for her.”

“What have you found so far?” Hope said, changing the topic suddenly, not wanting to get too emotional in front of people who were still somewhat strangers.

Jackson accepted the transition. He didn’t find it easy to talk about the bunker either. “I’m not really sure what I’m seeing, to be honest. We’ve isolated some tech particles - really really tiny tech - and Raven’s checking that out right now, but there are other things that I’m not really understanding.”

“Maybe I can help.” Hope said, standing up so fast that Jackson toppled over onto his ass. “Whoops. Sorry.” She held out a hand to help him stand. “Take a look in the microscope and tell me what you see.”

They made their way back over to the microscope, where Raven was staring intently at the slide underneath it.

“Did Octavia make this tech?” Raven asked, not moving from her position.

“Yes.”

“This is really impressive. I mean _really_ impressive.”

“Can you tell what it does yet?” Jackson asked.

“No, but it isn’t free-floating in her blood either. It is binding to some sort of specific neurotransmitters.”

“That must be how it crosses the blood-brain barrier.” Jackson said, taking the microscope over from Raven. “I’m assuming that’s the goal, because why would you just have tech in your bloodstream?”

“You think this is an AI?” Raven asked, turning to Hope. “Did Octavia build her own AI?”

“Not really?” Hope said. “I… I don’t know exactly how it works. AIs that she’d encountered were the inspiration for it, yes, but she’s always been adamant that it _wasn’t_ an AI. Does it work in the brain, yes, but it isn’t an AI.”

“Do you know what it does? Do you have it too?”

Hope nodded. “But I took a blocker with dinner, so I can’t access it right now.”

“So what does it do?”

Jackson straightened up from where he was looking in the microscope. “Empathy.” He turned to face the women. “What you were saying about that device that you have. That was a prototype, wasn’t it? For what Octavia has in her blood here?”

“Yeah. A prototype she used once and never again. She thought there had to be a better way. I’ve found other uses for it.”

“What are you saying, Jackson?” Raven asked.

“It is binding to neurotransmitters that inspire empathy. Empathy, bonding, connectedness.” Jackson leaned back against the table, deep in thought. “We’ve seen something kind of like this before.”

“The keys to the City of Light.” Raven said carefully.

“Yes. But instead of interrupting signals, like it did, disabling pain receptors and access to painful memories, this is augmenting the signals of the transmitters it attaches itself to. And because of its form, just like the keys, it isn’t something that requires Nightblood to work.”

“So it increases empathy and connectedness.” Raven said, taking back the microscope. “But that can’t be all it does. If all you were looking to do was increase someone’s ability to empathize with others, you could use a drug for that. So if she’s gone tech, there has to be something more to it.”

“There is.” Hope said. “Connection. Not just being able to empathize with others on a temporary basis, but being able to connect with them on an emotional and almost physical level - visit wherever someone is, make use of their skills.”

“So like ALIE, but without ALIE herself.” Jackson said. “The connection without the source code. Without the mind control.”

“Exactly. This is what Becca was aiming for.” Raven said. “I had ALIE’s code in my brain. That’s like having the most access to Becca’s mind as anyone who hasn’t had the Flame can have - I know what Becca wanted to do. She wanted a better world, she wanted to use technology to make that better world, but she was missing the key - that technology can’t make those decisions for us. She improved on ALIE with the Flame, but that was limited to one person. This is what comes beyond that. Making knowledge and understanding something to be shared by everyone who uses it.”

Hope nodded. “You’re getting it. _Ani_ was right to put her faith in you.”

“Do you know when the last time was that she and I were in any way close?”

“I do. At the funeral for people you both cared about.” Hope searched through her mind for names. _“Ani’s_ lover Lincoln. And your mentor… Sinclair, I think his name was?”

“Yeah.” Raven smiled wistfully. “That was during the battle against ALIE. And now here we are again, with new tech, and - does Octavia want us to take it? Is that why you’re here?”

“She wants it, yes. But she - _we_ \- would never force it. It has to be your choice.”

**_SANCTUM - TAVERN - AFTERNOON_ **

Emori entered the tavern in the aftermath of the chaos Hope left behind, Bellamy and Murphy kneeling on the floor next to Indra, whose convulsions were finally stopping.

“What the hell happened here?” Emori asked, kneeling down next to them and helping Indra sit up.

“Hope happened.” Murphy said.

“Hope.” Emori looked at Bellamy. “The girl who stabbed your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s been stabbing more people?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Bellamy rubbed the back of his neck, and Emori saw a bump on the back of Indra’s that was likely to match whatever Bellamy had.

Emori looked at the back of Murphy’s neck, but there was nothing there but the scar from the mind drive.

“I’m fine, Emori. She didn’t touch me. ‘I have no quarrel with you’, is what she said.”

“What quarrel does she have with the rest of us?”

“I don’t think she would with you either.” Indra said. “You never hurt someone she cares about.”

“You’re just accepting what she said about you?” Bellamy asked.

“I admit my mistakes.” Indra said evenly. “I failed her. I know that.”

“Failed who?” Emori asked.

“Octavia.”

“But then why is Hope attacking you?”

“Hope grew up with her mother - Diyoza - and Octavia.” Bellamy explained. “She’s angry at many of us for how we treated her.”

“Octavia seemed fine with you.”

“Hope believes she’s too forgiving.” Bellamy said. “So she injected both of us with… memories, somehow. She said we had to see to understand. What did you see, Indra?”

“I saw a scene I’d seen before. I was there. But this time I saw it from Octavia’s perspective. The pain she felt. The helplessness as the rest of us just stood by and let her bear that alone. Let her bear the cost of our survival on her own.”

“What was that?”

“Never mind that right now. Hope is dangerous. There’s no saying how many members of Wonkru she might go after.” Indra said. “Where is she now?”

“Either hunting them down or gone back to the lab with Raven and Jackson.” Bellamy said. “Jackson is Wonkru. Is he likely to be on her list of people she’d be seeking revenge on?”

“No. He was always loyal to Blodreina.” Indra said.

“Then we see if she’s there. If she is… we figure out what to do from there.”

“There are paralytics in the lab.” Emori said. “If we need them. But we should move quietly. The people here are already on edge after everything that has happened. Storming around with weapons will just cause more panic.”

“I agree.” Murphy said. “They still look at us like… like we’re Primes. We can use that if we have to.”

“Let’s go then.” Bellamy said, standing up, but he dropped to his knees as he did, eyes going blank again.

“What’s happening to him?” Emori asked. “Bellamy. _Bellamy!”_ She knelt in front of him, shaking him.

“He’s back in the memory. Hope said that it will remind him again and again when he least expects it.” Murphy said. “He’ll probably keep seeing that memory until that thing is cut out of him.”

“Well, if Jackson is locked up with the girl right now, we will have to solve that problem here.” Emori said, standing up and preparing to go ask Blythe Ann for a knife, when Murphy stopped her.

“We can’t just cut it out with a knife.” He cautioned. “It must be binding to the brainstem somehow. You can’t just cut that off without risking serious damage. It has to be someone skilled with that sort of surgery.”

“Gabriel.” Emori said. “He’s upstairs with Russell. Either of them could do it. How long do we have to wait for Bellamy to be mobile again?”

“Hopefully not too long.”

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

Octavia couldn’t connect to Hope. She’d tried, over and over again, tried to visit her, then visited a number of Hope’s friends across the universe, but none of them could connect to Hope either. She’d disappeared completely off the grid.

“What is it?” Niylah asked, standing by her side both in the lab and by Inanna’s waterfall. “Did something happen to her?”

“No.” Octavia said, voice hovering on the edge between anger and sorrow. “If she was hurt, I would have felt it.”

Octavia returned fully to the lab, ransacking her drawers in search of something, finally coming up with a bottle half-filled with black pills, slamming it down on the counter.

“Dammit.” Octavia said. “Dammit dammit _dammit.”_

“What are those?” Ash asked.

“Blockers. They’re effective for a few hours at a time to suppress the effects of the tech. I use them sometimes when I need to concentrate on my work - I’m connected to thousands of people, so it can be overwhelming if I need to focus. Hope took some of them too.”

“You think she took the blockers to keep you out on purpose?” Niylah asked.

Octavia nodded. “And she took the memory device. The way she was acting with Bellamy, with Indra - she’s going to use it on them, if she hasn’t already.” She buried her face in her hands. “What have I done?”

“This isn’t your fault.” Niylah said, rubbing Octavia’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have predicted this.”

“I should have.” Octavia said, voice hollow. “I should have destroyed that device. I never should have kept it, but - I couldn’t bear to destroy it because I wanted that reminder to not give in to my anger again. But all that’s done is make it possible for Hope to give in to hers. I never wanted that for her.”

“Hope made her choice.” Ash said. “You know better than anyone how important the ability to choose is. You also know what happens if you try to control someone ostensibly for their own good.”

“I do.” Octavia rubbed her tears away with the back of her hand. “Even if a choice is wrong, it - it can only be put right by compassion, not anger. Empathy, not revenge. Hope, not fear. I just hope she’ll see it that way.”

**_SANCTUM - PALACE - AFTERNOON_ **

Gabriel sat across the room from Russell, a lull in their conversation that had gone on for quite some time. What was there to talk about for two old old enemies, once allies?

As it turned out, quite a lot. After they’d discussed the molecular damage that demanded they leave the moon as soon as possible, the topic of conversation turned to Josephine. Russell had wanted to know about his daughter’s final hours. Gabriel asked him what possessed him to use Clarke’s mother as a host for Simone, knowing what it could cost him in terms of respect from the others from Earth.

Their tranquility was interrupted by more of the Earth people storming into the room, this time Bellamy, Indra, Emori and Murphy, expressions clearly demanding something.

“We need your help.” Bellamy said to Gabriel.

Gabriel smiled. “Of course you do. But getting it might cost you.”

Bellamy frowned. “What do you mean? We helped you save your people. We joined you on your insane Anomaly quest and now my sister is gone and injured and my girlfriend has gone in search of her to some other world to hopefully help her, and we’ve got the exchange student from hell who is shoving neural implants into our necks without consent.”

Gabriel chuckled. “You helped me. Right. The way I see it, you only helped me because you couldn’t stand to see your sister jump to do the right thing without you. You felt like she was showing you up. You’ve done nothing but disparage her in my presence, when from what I’ve seen, she’s been the one working to do better, as you all are so fond of saying. You’ve just been trying to keep up, if not outright believing she’s doing the wrong thing by helping people. Admit it. You only care about your people. Everyone else can rot in hell for all you care.”

“I want to help my sister. Don’t you?”

“What I heard was Hope say that Octavia doesn’t need your help. She needs your support. That’s something entirely different.”

“Well Hope injected some sort of insane neural implant into my neck. You still think you can trust her?”

“What does this neural implant do?”

“It’s been making me experience her memories. One of her memories, specifically. Of her childhood, and Octavia… she… there was blood everywhere.”

“Hope showed you a memory from her childhood where she saw Octavia losing it and cutting herself up, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Yes.”

“And you can’t think of any reason why she might want to do that?”

“Octavia cutting herself or Hope wanting me to see it?”

“Surprise me.”

“Octavia… I have no idea. And Hope… she’s on some sort of crusade to avenge my sister, from the sound of it.”

“Avenge her. Right. So you don’t think that you can trust Hope on matters when it comes to Octavia’s current well-being, but you do believe she is out for blood on Octavia’s behalf.”

“Yeah.”

“Think about that a bit, Bellamy. Actually think about that a lot. And get comfortable, because if you’re here to ask me to remove that neural implant from your neck, the answer is no.”

“No?”

“No. Hope believes that you need to see what she’s showing you.”

“It isn’t just me. She injected Indra with some of Octavia’s memories too.”

Gabriel’s eyes flitted over Indra with vague disinterest. “I guess she’s got something to learn as well. Both of you should get comfortable then, because I’m not taking anything out of you until you’ve learned what it is that she wants you to understand.”

“We saw the memories.”

“Maybe watching them isn’t the point.”

“Then why show us?”

“There’s more to _seeing_ than merely observing, Bellamy.”

**_SANCTUM - LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

As Bellamy and Indra continued to argue with Gabriel, Murphy slipped out of the palace and headed down to the lab. He still had unanswered questions, and if things were going to go down, he needed to be on that right side of those doors to get them.

As the inner doors whooshed open, he saw Hope spin around and assume a fighting stance as he entered the lab. She didn’t drop it when she saw him.

Murphy held up his hands. “Relax. I’m not the one you need to be worried about.”

“Are they on their way?” Jackson asked.

“Not yet. But soon enough they will be, because Gabriel refused to remove those implants.”

Jackson crossed his arms over his chest. “They won’t be getting any help from me either.”

“I didn’t think they would. That’s why I’m here.” Murphy turned to Hope. “You told me that I’d seen. You’re talking about the dreams, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You gave Bellamy a memory of yours, where you witnessed Octavia’s nightmares and her cutting herself. You said that you saw that more than once.”

“Saw it more than once and I know it happened even more times that I didn’t see.”

“Right. I assume this was all a subconscious reaction to the trauma she went through in the bunker, and what Bellamy and Indra and whoever else did to her after it was opened. Poisoning her, exiling her, generally treating her like trash?”

“Yes.”

Murphy nodded. “Well, let me tell you a little something about Bellamy. He’s a stubborn dumbass who believes he’s the only one who can be right, and if you disagree with him, you’re automatically a horrible person even if you’re trying to do what’s best for your people. It’s going to take a lot more than that to get him to see what you want him to see.”

“Get to the point, Murphy.” Raven said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“I know that. And you need time in which to do it. I can get you that. I’ll keep them out of here, you just need to know that I’m on your side and I still have questions that I’ll want answered.”

“Okay.” Hope said. “That’s fair.”

“Good.” Murphy headed back to the door. “Seal these doors after me. I’d recommend not opening them until you’ve found what you need to.”

After he left, Raven went over to the door panel, punching in a few commands, ensuring the door couldn’t be opened from the outside. Once she was finished, she turned back to Jackson.

“What happened in the bunker?” Raven asked. “I don’t know any of it, I just know that all of you - I know something bad happened, but I don’t know the details. I saw Octavia on the ship, and I thought she was just angry, but now it seems like it was more, it was - she didn’t hate everyone around her, she hated _herself_ more than anyone.”

Jackson nodded sadly. “It was hard. It was hard on all of us, but especially on her, since she had to lead. It was never her choice, but she bore the cost of it.”

Raven’s gaze slid to the pocket of Hope’s jacket where she had the memory device. “Are you able to… I don’t know how you’d call it… add memories to that thing?”

“Yes.”

“Jackson, give me your memories.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to know what it is that you went through. Pick your worst memory, pick your experience of Octavia’s worst memory of the bunker, doesn’t matter. I know you might not want to talk about it, so we can do it like this. I want to understand.”

“Are you sure?” Hope asked. “I’m not sure how to remove it, though I know that if you _see_ properly then it will stop repeating itself.”

“I’ll figure it out.” Jackson said. “I can take it out if necessary.”

“Will you share your memories?” Raven asked. “Please.”

“If you really want to see… I guess my memory might not be as painful as the other options. But are you sure you wouldn’t rather just take… this?” Jackson indicated the slide with Octavia’s blood. “By our estimations of what we’ve seen here, you’ll be able to experience those memories then too.”

“I could.” Raven said. “But I… I feel like I owe it to her somehow, of knowing before I join her. There’s so much we’ve left unsaid over the years, that I want to understand her like I haven’t before. And you were close to her. Are close to her. So I want to do this.”

Jackson nodded. “Okay.”

Hope pulled the device out of her pocket, and pressed some buttons. “It is ready to receive a memory now. You’ll need to focus on that memory, let it play out in your mind, as I hold this into your brainstem. It’ll probably hurt.”

Jackson sat down on the gurney, and Hope slipped the needle into the back of his neck, as they both winced, Hope in sympathy with the pain. “Okay, _think._ Tap my arm when you’re finished.”

He focused on the memory of that day in the cafeteria, at the start of the Dark Year. _How he and Miller understood what needed to be done, and when Octavia said her piece, they ate, along with Niylah and Indra across from them._

_Then the rest of the scene played out - Kane didn’t eat, neither did several other tables full of people. Octavia went over to one of the tables, begged them to eat, they still refused. He’d remained seated as the first shot rang out._

_When that still didn’t move people, though, he’d risen to his feet to watch the rest. He could see Octavia’s shoulders shaking, her arm trembling - she didn’t want this. She didn’t want any of it. But they had to eat. As a doctor, he understood that._

_Two more shots rang out, then Kane and the other resisters capitulated and ate. Octavia pushed the gun back into the hands of the guard she’d taken it from and returned to the head table without a word._

_Jackson didn’t miss the tear tracks on her cheeks as she struggled to eat the rest of her own meal without gagging._

He tapped Hope’s arm, and she pulled the needle out.

“How was that?” She asked, reaching for a bandage to place over the wound.

“Not something I like to think about. But what’s done is done. We did what we had to do.”

Hope nodded, squeezing his shoulder. “I know. I don’t know how you all survived it, it - it sounds horrible.”

“When you believe you’re the last of the human race, you - you find a way to survive. That’s the best I can offer.”

“So what should I do?” Raven asked, taking off her jacket and sweeping her hair to the side.

“Best sit. Lay down, if you can, after I do the injection.”

Jackson stood up, letting Raven take the gurney, watching as Hope slid the needle into the back of Raven’s neck, seeing a small bead come out of the tip and implant itself in Raven’s spine.


	4. Chapter 4

**_SANCTUM - LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

Raven lay back on the gurney as her muscles seized up and eyes went blank, her frozen form and lack of movement reflecting what Jackson had been feeling in those moments in the cafeteria. Sorrow for those who died, powerlessness for the inescapability of their circumstances, pain for what he knew Octavia was feeling, having to play judge, jury and executioner, horror for the expression on Abby’s face as she realized how she’d brought them here to this moment, how what she’d demanded of Octavia could only end one way… it was all there in Raven’s frozen body.

It felt like long hours, but was surely only minutes, when Raven’s body relaxed. She blinked a few times and tried to sit up, but Hope was there urging her to stay lying down.

“It’ll take a bit before your muscles work again.” Hope said. “Don’t try to move too quickly.”

Raven nodded, tears spilling from her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Jackson. I’m so sorry for all of you. Seeing that, _feeling_ that…” She looked up at Hope. “Your mother called me _soft_ once, because I wasn’t as ruthless as her, I wasn’t… I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d been there in the bunker. I don’t know what - I - Jackson, do you remember when we were in Becca’s lab?”

“How could I forget? Of all the nightmares I have, that’s one of the worst.”

“I - your mother was right, Hope. I am soft. Not… maybe not for the reason why she said it, but… I’ve watched so many people have to make so many terrible choices for our survival. I’ve _asked_ people to make those kinds of decisions. I know I’ve reaped the benefits of people making those choices. But what it has cost them to do so feels so much more real now. I only felt _you_ in that scene, it was your memory, but how you thought about what it was costing Octavia, what it was costing Abby…” Her expression turned to horror. “… and how Abby escaped all judgment for what happened. I judged her for what she did to me, but I didn’t think about how I might not be the only one she mistreated. She blamed Octavia for everything, and we just accepted that, and… I’m sorry. I should know better. I need to tell Octavia I’m sorry.”

“You can. Soon. But I don’t think she bears any ill will against you.”

“I still need to say it.” Raven sat up carefully, muscles finally letting her. “Should I have this taken out before? Jackson?”

“Probably a good idea. No need to have multiple neural interfaces mixing together. Hope, can you find me a localized anesthetic? There should be one in the cupboard over there.”

“Sure.”

It took time, but with some care and tiny instruments, Jackson was able to extract the memory bead from Raven’s neck, dropping it into a tray. Unlike the Flame’s many tentacles, the bead had only one that had wrapped its way into Raven’s brainstem, but that released when Jackson touched a scalpel to it.

“Do you think it always comes out as easily?” He asked Hope, as she looked surprised at how quickly it came free.

“No.” Hope said, shaking her head. “I think it probably only came loose like that because Raven saw and _understood._ The way this _should_ work. Which means that if someone tries to take them out of Bellamy and Indra before they’ve absorbed the lessons they need to learn… it won’t go so smoothly.”

“I don’t know if they’ll find someone else to do it, but I certainly won’t.” Jackson said, voice ice cold. “I don’t know if Octavia told you, but I experienced Indra’s betrayal first-hand. After Bellamy poisoned Octavia, I was treating her, and the treatment was successful. I’m glad I followed my instincts rather than what I now realize was Indra and Bellamy trying to misdirect me. Octavia would have died otherwise.

“She was starting to wake up when Indra showed up, and after Octavia revealed it had been Bellamy who had poisoned her… I told Indra to arrest Bellamy, but she said she couldn’t, and killed the guard in the room with us. That’s when I realized she’d been working _with_ Bellamy, so I tried to tranquilize her, to stop her, but - she turned it around on me instead. I’m sure that the only reason she didn’t kill me too was because I’m a doctor and thus more valuable alive.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” Hope said, resting a gentle hand on Jackson’s wrist. “But that means you understand what is at stake. Why we need to make it clear to them, everything that they don’t know, everything that they have to understand.”

Jackson nodded. “I do.”

The anesthetic began to wear off, and Raven picked up the memory bead, rolling it between her fingers, watching the strand that had wrapped itself into her brainstem.

“Incredible.” Raven said. “And it just let go? Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

They heard a crash come from outside the skeleton room, the sound of someone trying to force their way in through the outer doors.

“Trouble is on its way.” Jackson said, glancing at the door, though the solid wall wasn’t going to move as easily. “Let’s hope that Murphy can hold them off.”

“He will.” Raven said. “When it comes to talking people into or out of stuff, he’s actually pretty damn good at it.”

“So what’s your choice?” Hope asked. “Will you join us? Will you help Octavia bring her new world to your people? Will you help her bring peace and empathy and love? And when we’ve deleted Sheidheda and stopped Father William, help bring us all home? Back to Earth?”

“Back to Earth?” Raven asked, confused.

“That’s right, I told the others, but not you.” Hope said. “This empathy tech has been _ani’s_ side project. Her main mission on the other side, in Omphalos, has been to help restore Earth. It’s ready now. If you connect with her, she can tell you all about it. Show you pictures, even.” Hope smiled. “I’ve seen them. It is so beautiful, Raven. So beautiful. I want you to be able to see it.”

Raven exchanged a glance with Jackson. “What do you say?”

“I trust Octavia.” Jackson said. “I’m in.”

“I’m in too.” Raven said. “So what do we do?”

Hope picked up her knife and examined the amount of blood that was left in the compartment. “You inject yourselves with her blood. Doesn’t need to be a lot. Keep some for others if they want to join from her level, otherwise they can also take blood from you, they just won’t have the same access to connections as you will.”

Hope handed the knife to Jackson, and he prepared two syringes using the blood inside.

“You sure?” He asked Raven, preparing to inject her with it.

“I’m sure.” He pressed the plunger, and they all watched as Octavia’s blood entered Raven’s veins.

Hope helped him administer the second injection to himself, after which they both looked at her.

“So what’s supposed to happen now?” Raven asked.

“Now you’ll want to get comfortable. You’ll probably experience some headaches. To begin to direct your mind, you want to relax and let the tech take you into your mindspace. Once you’ve seen what you need to see there, Octavia will meet you and let you know what comes next.”

**_SANCTUM - SKELETON ROOM - AFTERNOON_ **

Emori forced the keypad open as Bellamy dropped to the ground, another wave of the memory going through him. Indra positioned him so that he wouldn’t hurt himself on anything.

“We need that door open, Emori.” Indra commanded.

“Working on it.” Emori said, connecting up some wires to shock the doors open, secretly glad that the memory hit Bellamy when it did, since too much banging on the doors would attract attention from the residents of Sanctum.

Bellamy came back to regular consciousness as the door locks released, and Indra and Emori dragged him inside, closing the doors behind them.

Looking towards the lab doors, however, Emori was met with an unexpected sight.

“John, what are you doing here?” She asked.

“Just walk away.” Murphy said. “Just turn around and walk back out that door.”

“Is Hope in there?” Bellamy asked, struggling to his feet.

“What if she is?”

“You saw what she did to us.”

“I did.”

“What if she’s doing the same to Raven and Jackson right now?”

“She’s not. Because unlike you, they’re open to points of view that aren’t ‘do whatever Bellamy says’.”

“What’s going on, Murphy?”

“You’re not the one calling the shots here. And that’s a good thing.”

“Hope stabbed my sister, causing her to vanish into thin air. She convinced Echo to go into the Anomaly after her. Now that she’s got access to Sanctum, she’s gone after me and Indra. You really think you can trust her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Bellamy scoffed, rubbing his hand across his face. “What did she promise you, Murphy? What does she have that you want, that you’ll risk everyone’s lives to get at?”

“I’m not risking anyone’s lives. Hope is not a threat to us.”

“Did I miss the part about her trying to murder my sister?”

“Because no one is allowed to do that besides you, is that right? The great Bellamy Blake, who always has the best ideas and everyone always lives when he’s in charge. The control freak who needs to be on top of everything and if anyone ever dares to step out of line, they’re a problem to be dealt with by any means necessary?”

“John…” Emori cautioned.

“Emori, he risked all of our lives to save Clarke. We were almost burned at the stake.” Murphy turned to Bellamy. “Did you know that? Russell was going to kill us all. He almost bodysnatched Echo to make her his new wife. He _did_ do that to Abby.”

“You were willing to let Clarke die and collaborate with her murderers.”

“Yeah. I was. Because I thought it was the right thing to do to guarantee the safety of the rest of our people. You’ve done the same thing, so why is it only wrong if someone else does it?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“How you almost murdered your own sister for a surrender that would have gotten us all killed.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? You could hope that the prisoners were going to share the valley, even though that was never their intention. Just like I hoped that the Primes would stop at taking Clarke. You want to talk about failure of good intentions, we can be here all day.”

“Murphy…”

“You’re not going in there. The only way that door is opening is from the other side.”

**_SANCTUM - LAB - EVENING_ **

Jackson watched as Raven settled into a comfortable spot, trying to do the same for himself. He didn’t know what to expect, he didn’t know what would happen, just that Hope had told them to be able to connect, they first had to see what they needed to see within their mindspaces.

Whatever that meant.

So they’d gone through all of the cupboards in the lab, and made themselves as comfortable as they could. Barricaded as they were on the inside, knowing that the others were in the skeleton room, it would have to do.

Hope busied herself on one of the computers, looking through various files on… Jackson didn’t even know what. So many images flashed across her screen at a rapid pace. So all that was left for him to do was focus on himself, and find those connections. Find himself within his own mind.

Jackson settled back against the wall, pulling a blanket over his lap. He wasn’t _cold,_ not really, but the extra warmth was comforting. It had been years since he’d been separated from Miller for this long, and he found himself somewhat lost without his strong powerful presence by his side.

But he knew that in the past weeks since they’d woken up, things weren’t easy. Miller’s mind was troubled in a way his wasn’t, and it was… not driving a wedge between them, not yet, but he knew it could go that way if they didn’t address it. But how could they address it if they were on completely different _worlds?_

He closed his eyes, taking deep breaths, trying to settle into some form of stillness where he’d be able to reach into his mind and find what he needed there. He didn’t know what to expect. Clarke had spoken briefly about her time imprisoned in her mindspace while Josephine controlled her body, and to be honest, the thought of something like that terrified him. He didn’t know what he’d find on the other side.

But deep breaths did help mellow him, lulling him into a sense of safety.

**_JACKSON’S MINDSPACE - SANCTUM LAB - EVENING_ **

When he opened his eyes to his mindspace, he found something he didn’t expect at all.

The same room that he was in, only he knew he wasn’t still properly awake, for the blanket was gone, Raven wasn’t there, neither was Hope. The doors to the skeleton room were open.

Two familiar women stood in front of him, paying him no mind, staring each other down in a battle of wills, while beyond them, Miller stood firm and silent as a sentinel, clearly supervising them but his eyes were on Jackson, Miller the only person who seemed to notice that Jackson was there.

Abby and Octavia, on the other hand, did not notice he was there. They said nothing, to each other or anyone else, they just stared. Abby was as Jackson had last seen her - simple clothing in the lab, as she’d been murdered by Russell. (That hadn’t been Abby dressed to the nines later on. Abby was already dead. That was just someone wearing her body.) Octavia was dressed simply, black jeans, black shirt, long black jacket. None of her Blodreina regalia. Her hair was longer, and it fell straight around her face as she stared into Abby’s eyes.

“Abby? Octavia?” Jackson asked as he got to his feet.

“They won’t answer you.” Miller said. “They’re in a war that they can’t end.”

“Why not?”

“Abby’s dead. You know that.”

“I do, but why is she here?”

“You spent years working side by side. On the Ark, on the ground, in the bunker. Here.”

“So what does this mean?”

“That’s for you to figure out. I can’t help you with that.”

Jackson tried to circle around them to reach Miller, but no matter which way he tried to go, the room spun, not letting him pass. No matter what he tried, Octavia and Abby remained between him and Miller.

“Why can’t I reach you?”

“This is standing between us, Jackson.”

“But Abby’s dead. You said so yourself.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s over.”

“What?” Jackson was confused.

He walked right up to Abby and Octavia, still locked in their staring contest, still not moving a muscle. They weren’t statues though, they were real - as real as a mindspace was of course - for he did see them breathing. Octavia was almost shaking, standing here in confrontation with Abby, who had the same righteous glare that Jackson had seen so many times before.

A righteous glare he’d often respected, even when he wasn’t brave enough to do the same as her. Even when he wasn’t brave enough to stand up to the powers that had been like she was. How many times had Abby risked floating? And he’d refused to do the same, even if it was to save a life?

But sometime during their time on the ground, the righteous glare had remained, but her motivations had shifted. Her priorities had shifted. She had moved so far away from the point she’d started at, that fateful day when they first sent the hundred to the ground. He’d been there when she told Kane that she was the one who made sure that humanity _deserved_ to survive.

But how was this coming between him and Miller? That was what Jackson couldn’t understand. 

Until it dawned on him.

At some point, during their years in the bunker, Jackson had stopped not being brave enough. He’d grown his courage. A courage that, when the day came that he heard Octavia speak those fateful words - “my brother poisoned me” - and Indra killed the guard in the room with them, he didn’t think twice. 

He knew what he stood for, and he didn’t hesitate. Didn’t hesitate to go for the tranquilizer to put Indra down. Even though he’d failed, he’d made a decision, he’d chosen to be brave and take a side.

And at the time, it had been the same side as Miller. But somehow since waking up, Miller had been a different person. He didn’t understand how. And thus his still fervent support for Octavia was the wedge between them, even though Miller was the one who was there with her in person, even though he was the one who had access to all of the information about this tech, that Jackson didn’t but still took a leap of faith on.

Jackson wasn’t sure when he’d suddenly gained that courage, gained that desire to stand up for what he believed in rather than letting someone else fight for it in his stead, but it wasn’t something he was ready to let go of.

“Why, Nate?” Jackson asked. “Why did you stop believing in her? Why did you stop believing in what we had to do to survive?”

“We have to learn from our mistakes.”

“What mistakes? What could we have done differently?”

“Maybe that’s the question you should be asking yourself.”

Jackson looked at them again, two strong-willed women locked in a battle of wills that neither was going to break. One that was dead in the real world, one that was alive and on a different world. Abby had been sinking into the depths of self-loathing since their experiments in Becca’s lab, and she’d wanted to die in Praimfaya, but Kane had prevented that. Kane had prevented her from dying in the gladiator arena too. And his obsessive saving her made her just as obsessive to save him.

And Octavia… just as determined to save her people, a wider group than Abby’s one person. Octavia had confided in him long ago that Abby had been the one to inspire her actions in the Dark Year. That she hadn’t wanted to do any of it, but Abby had forced her hand. As her hand had been forced so many times before and since.

Jackson thought back to that day in Sanctum’s library, when Abby had called him a war criminal for standing by Octavia. What was _criminal_ about making sure their people lived? Wasn’t that the whole point - to keep their people alive, so that they would have the opportunity to _live_ again someday? How could Abby call them horrible people for saving their people, speaking so cruelly of Octavia when she hadn’t done anything to stand by the teenager with the weight of the world on her shoulders? Abby felt guilty, that was clear, but not guilty enough to come clean to the world, leaving it all on Octavia’s shoulders. And both women had hated themselves for it.

But only one had disavowed her participation in their people’s tragedy.

At a certain point, Octavia needed to reclaim her agency, her agency that Abby had taken from her, but she never had that chance. Abby had taken her self-righteous version of events to the grave, and from what he’d seen, the others of their people accepted her story at face value, even Bellamy, who seemed to have reconciled with his sister despite Abby’s lies.

Where was his own role in all of this? Jackson wondered. With Abby gone, what could he do to restore that balance? To give Octavia back her agency? Was there anything he could do, and what could he do to use that to reach Miller?

“I have to be brave.” Jackson said. “I have to make a stand. But I’m doing that, aren’t I? I took this leap of faith.”

“Is it enough?” Miller asked.

“It has to be.” Jackson looked straight at Miller. “I stood up for our past to you. But I should have done it to the others too. They were the ones who needed to see. You have your own reckoning to make with your past, with what you’ve done. I found my bravery. I stood up to Indra. I stood up to the guards that were killing Abby right in front of me. I tried to save her, but I couldn’t.”

Jackson stepped closer to the two women, stepping between them, resting a hand on each of their shoulders. “I couldn’t save her so that she could make things right. But I can save you. Give you the voice that was taken from you.”

“That’s not saving me, Jackson.” The first words that Octavia had spoken.

“Maybe not. But it is how I can make things right.”

“I came between you and her. She was your mentor for years.” Octavia whispered.

“She was.” Jackson looked at Abby’s still frozen form. “But you didn’t come between us. Integrity came between us. We were in a horrible situation, and she gave you a terrible but necessary solution to it. She should have stood by you. But she didn’t, and then she pretended like it wasn’t even her idea to begin with. I wasn’t brave enough to stand up to her then. If I had, if I’d made sure that she stood by you… maybe none of us would be here. Maybe we would have survived on Earth. Maybe she wouldn’t be dead.”

“You can’t blame yourself for Abby’s death.” Octavia said. “In the end, she risked her life to save Madi. She knew she was putting herself at risk and she did it anyway.”

“Are you here?” Jackson asked. “Are you Octavia, or are you a projection of my subconscious?”

“I’m real. I’m here.”

“You’re forgiving her too, like you forgave your brother.”

“I am. Because all of that, all of that rejection and darkness, it brought me here. The road was hard. Really hard. Living in the darkness and pain that we lived in in the bunker was easier than finding my way out of it. But I did. It wasn’t easy, and I know putting all of that behind you will be hard for you too. And Miller.” Octavia smiled. “I’m still working on him. He isn’t an easy nut to crack. But as I learned, you can only move on from the pain when you’re ready to let go of it. I got there. You’re getting there. Niylah’s getting there. He will too. He just needs time.”

Jackson’s eyes went to Miller, who had been frozen in place ever since Octavia started speaking. “So he’s a projection of my mind. He’s not… him.”

“Afraid not. Not yet. But soon, I hope. And once you visit over to this side, you can see him. You can talk to him through me. Maybe that will help convince him.”

“Are we really going to be going back to Earth?”

“We are.” Octavia lowered her gaze. “That’s been my main focus - to bring our people home. And we’ll have much more than a city, or a valley… it’s so beautiful, Jackson. I know you’ll be excited to make a home there. It’ll be a home for all of our people. I’m finally able to give them what they deserved all along.”

“I can’t wait.”

Octavia stepped forward and gave him a hug, and he returned it, able to feel the warmth emanating from her, not a physical warmth but an emotional warmth where for years she’d been cold, frozen even, by necessity.

“See you soon.” Octavia said. “Now go, spread the word.”

“I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming next week:
> 
> _**7x04 Break the Wheel** \- After being faced with a heartbreaking choice, Octavia reveals the story that brought them to where they are now - her first mission to restore Earth and the devastating truths that it uncovered._
> 
> Be sure to subscribe to the series (OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100) so that you get updates for the whole season and not just the individual episodes!


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